I proposed beginning fresh and organizing a new orchestra that wouldn’t have the liabilities of a new orchestra.

TRENTON — Musicians from the defunct Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra, hoping to shake off remnants of the group’s rocky past, have formed the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra with a new conductor, new management, revised marketing strategies and plans for a New Year’s Eve concert at the War Memorial.

The only obstacle in their path is the $35,000 needed to make it happen.

“I believe there’s great potential,” conductor Dan Spalding insists. “It’s not going to be like the 1980s when we had 12 to 15 concerts a year. But it’s worth a try. There’s a huge amount of people around the area and no symphony orchestra to go to except Princeton’s.”

It was Spalding, a Ewing resident and the 22-year director and founder of the world-traveled Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, who suggested re-inventing the Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra with a new name, logo and board of directors.

He came into the mix after Steve Kyle and a small group of GTSO musicians began meeting last February to see what they could do to revitalize the orchestra. Kyle, a bassist who represented the musicians during union negotiations — “a shop steward,” he calls it — credits Spalding with getting things rolling in August when they all met.

“Dan really added a lot,” Kyle says. “We (musicians) don’t know how to do these (business) things. We’re just musicians.”

What complicates matters is a protracted dispute over pay that left nearly 60 members of the GTSO orchestra unpaid for last year’s New Year’s Eve performance because GTSO had not submitted paperwork to receive its non-profit funding from the New Jersey Council on the Arts until very recently.

According to Kyle, all of the paperwork is now filed by GTSO and the musicians will receive what is owed them, something in the $320 range per person. That will happen once someone from the former GTSO management handles the final transfer.

In the interim, many of the musicians assumed other jobs, began teaching or found work outside of music.

The Greater Trenton Symphony Association, which managed the GTSO under John Peter Holly’s direction, is now gone, its former accountant replaced by a new accountant. Spalding said he is in the process of forming a new board of directors.

Asked to specify what brought the former GTSO to its knees after last year’s New Year’s Eve concert, both Kyle and Spalding answer “management.”

“The reasons are varied,” says Kyle, a Yardley, Pa., resident. “I’m not going to point any fingers. But the result is that the oldest professional orchestra in the state has ceased to perform.”

“I proposed beginning fresh and organizing a new orchestra that wouldn’t have the liabilities of a new orchestra,” Spalding explained. “I reserved the War Memorial Patriots Theater. I have a budget, a marketing plan and started looking for new board of directors members.
“We will hire a full orchestra and we’re trying to rehire some people from GTSO that didn’t get paid. But there are no guarantees members of the orchestra won’t be paid less this year.”

Spalding and Kyle are now asking most of those same orchestra members to come back for this year’s New Year’s Eve concert as the duo begins fundraising to get things started. But since they have yet to acquire non-profit status, there are no grants on the way. They will have to raise money the old-fashioned way — by selling tickets.

“We need to sell at least 700 tickets out of 1,700 seats. That’s how many tickets were sold last year. There are limitations on how big we will be able to grow the audience. But this concert has to be a success to keep the orchestra active,” said Spalding, who will be conducting with former GTSO musicians for the first time. “The budget for everything we need for the New Year’s Eve concert is about $35,000.”

Spalding and Kyle are hoping a proper audience will find its way back to the War Memorial and restore the renamed orchestra to prominence. Both men refuse to blame the city of Trenton for the overall drop in attendance at the venue, pointing out that the New Year’s Eve concert in particular, has always been a draw.

The night’s program will include selections from Liszt, Johann Strauss, Bernstein and Miklos Rozsa’s “Spellbound” Concerto from the Alfred Hitchcock movie by the same name. Pianist Gabriela Imreh, Spalding’s wife, will be featured.

“Trenton has to have a symphonic orchestra,” Spalding insists. “The huge potential of the War Memorial is unbelievable. It just has to have an excellent economic driver. That’s what we want to provide.”